


Recover

by Spindlefibres



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, M/M, Misunderstandings, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 23:59:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1667258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spindlefibres/pseuds/Spindlefibres
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which John Watson is an asshole and then makes up for it (and how!)</p><p>John Watson was not a particularly happy man. All he wanted to do was have a relaxing, boring evening. Preferably with minimal explosions in the kitchen, and no bodily substances in his favourite mug.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recover

**Author's Note:**

> First fanfic, this was for this prompt on the kink meme: http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/21766.html?thread=128417798#t128417798
> 
> Hopefully I did it justice

It had been a shit day at the office. Three hayfever cases, one of whom turned out to also have emphysema, several bee stings (where did people even find bees in London?) which escalated into mild allergic reactions, and joy of all joys, a regular hypochondriac who John had involuntarily been shunted into seeing.

Suffice it to say John Watson was not a particularly happy man. All he wanted to do was have a relaxing, boring evening. Preferably with minimal explosions in the kitchen, and no bodily substances in his favourite mug.

 

As John came into the flat, his plans of tea, a digestive, and maybe some relaxed time in front of the telly were smashed immediately. Sherlock was sprawled on the sofa, his torso prostate against the cushions while his legs spread rather awkwardly on the floor. Sherlock Holmes was many things, but rarely could he be described as ungainly. And yet. This was a mild cause for alarm.

“Sherlock? Are you alright?” John couldn’t decide whether he should be concerned or furious. Perhaps Sherlock had bitten off more than he could chew this time.

“Jo…John?” Turning his head slightly towards his fuming flatmate, Sherlock eventually managed to open his eyes. John noted absently that they were glassy, the pupils dilated to ridiculous levels so that Sherlock’s normally piercing examination was dimmed to a bewildered gaze.

“Explain. Now.”

Sherlock’s response to this was to slump further onto the floor. He continued, however, to blearily look up at his flatmate. Looking up… at John. Which was funny, because John was usually the one looking up at him. Sherlock gave a small giggle at the thought.

John’s disapproving glare collapsed when he heard Sherlock laugh. He was amused by John’s attempts to find out what was wrong? Fine. John stormed into the kitchen, looking for his favourite mug, the RAMC one that had somehow survived the time both pre- and post- Sherlock. John got the tea out of the cupboard, then searched for some milk in the fridge while trying to avoid making eye contact with the contents. He was reaching out for the kettle when an anguished yelp came from the vicinity of the sofa.

“Sherlock?” John rushed towards the sound, hoping that whatever caused it wasn’t serious.

In the brief period of time left unsupervised, Sherlock had managed to completely liberate body from sofa. Not content to stop there, he had apparently pushed himself into a uncomfortable position where he was slumped over his bent knees, face to the floor. The movements leading up to this appeared to be responsible for the yelp.

John smirked a bit. Served the tosser right, thinking that he could… That train of thought led to the uncomfortable realisation that Sherlock was probably on something. Hey, John had just come off an unpleasant 10 hour shift, his usual observational skills weren’t really at their best. What this did mean, however, was that John was faced with a conundrum: look after his friend, who might or might not be out of his head, or feel betrayed about the fact that Sherlock was using again.

Deciding upon the middle ground, John returned to the kitchen and finished making his cup of tea. Turning on the telly, John sat down with a happy sigh and blew on the scalding tea until it was merely uncomfortably hot.

Sherlock gave another moan, but John pretended not to hear it. He’d decided, after all, that Sherlock’s punishment would be isolation, to a small extent. He was still worried about his flatmate, after all, but any attempt at conversation would devolve into shouting very quickly, of this John was certain. He took a swig of his tea and felt his body melt into the chair. This, he concluded, was exactly what he’d been craving all day. Minus the drugged up flatmate, that is. A few minutes of a dull show with irritatingly timed commercial breaks passed before he chanced a look at Sherlock again. And what he saw was most definitely Not Good.

Sherlock’s shirt had ridden up as he continued to move around, and his usually pale skin was inflamed and occasionally broken, especially on his sides, which were riddled with long and shallow scratches. John began to feel very uncomfortable about his behaviour over the last hour. Fuck, had Sherlock wandered around in his hazy state before coming back to Baker Street? He might be angry at the daft bastard, but he hadn’t wanted Sherlock to actually get hurt, and he felt obligated to check on him, just to make sure. With that thought firmly in place, he went over to Sherlock, groaning as his shoulder protested being moved.

Crouching beside Sherlock, John gave his prostrate friend a small shake. Then a slightly harder one. As Sherlock continued to stubbornly resist being woken up, John swore, and went to the kitchen. Grabbing a ‘successful’ experiment, he returned to Sherlock’s side and wafted the pungent petri dish beneath Sherlock’s nose. A sharp inhale and fluttering eyelashes were all that were required for John to move the foul smelling concoction far away from either of them, and as he turned back to his (fortunately now conscious) friend, he gave a small chuckle as he thought about how Sherlock’s experiments had finally paid off.

 

Sherlock's eyelids finally stayed ope long enough for him to glimpse John, and his face, slack until that point, began to express confusion as his forehead furrowed. His attempts to focus were actually rather adorable. John's own face temporarily contorted as he wondered where the hell that last thought had originated. Noticing your flatmate was strangely gorgeous (for a man) was one thing, but 'adorable'? Christ, he was besotted. 

Saving the sexuality crisis for later, John turned his attention back to Sherlock. Sparing a tight smile for his confused friend, John carefully lifted up Sherlock's shirt to check for further damage, but halted immediately as Sherlock let out a terrified cry.

"Sherlock? I'm just going to check you for injuries, looks like you got a bit roughed up. Save that for cases, yeah?" John's mild explanation and rather awful attempt at humour were met with a small nod, and John spared a thought for why Sherlock would react so defensively to a routine pattern. The ideas were less than pleasant. To his own surprise, John felt bile in the back of his throat as his musings took a darker tone, an instinct he'd believed the army had trained out of him. He supposed it was bound to be different, when it was someone you really cared about, suffering from wounds beyond the physical.

John decided that unbuttoning the dress shirt, rather than lifting it, would probably be a better idea, and less likely to injure Sherlock. Dammit, he was obviously more tired than he'd thought. Efficiently unbuttoning Sherlock's shirt, John took in a harsh breath as the full extent of Sherlock's injuries became apparent. There were few untouched areas on his chest, and his back was worse. John couldn't see his arms, but running his hands down them gently revealed that they were injured near the wrists, possibly by some sort of restraints? Most damning of all was the small puncture mark in Sherlock's abdomen, surrounded by inflamed skin which indicated that Sherlock had objected to the needle. John was beginning to realise just how badly he'd read the situation.

"Sherlock, what exactly happened today?" He tried to sound as calm as he could, because he imagined that a tone which promised death for anyone who'd ever wronged Sherlock might be a bit off-putting for the man himself.

"You're. You're still here?" And god did John want to bring retribution for everyone who had ever called Sherlock emotionless. 

"Yes, Sherlock. You're safe." John had intended to continue asking questions, but Sherlock's sudden lunge to had in all fairness not been something he'd planned for. So he sat there, his friend's head cradled against his solar plexus like the most precious thing in the world. 

He sat, and he found himself whispering meaningless words to calm Sherlock, and he thought about just how much this brilliant, bizarre, reckless lunatic meant to him. And then he got tired of how inane his thoughts were, and carefully maneuvered Sherlock safely into his bedroom and made sure that there were no further wounds. Patched up the ones already there. Reminded himself to have serious thoughts about what he wanted to do about his feelings for Sherlock in the morning. And finally, finally went to sleep, curled protectively around his Sherlock. 

There would be a discussion of what exactly happened in the morning. That, and some shouted declarations of "Why do you still care?" and "Because I love you, you mad git!" respectively. It would, by all respects, be a decidedly less shit day than the one which preceded it. The snogging against a wall definitely helped.


End file.
